Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Mar 12, 2011 Abby Johnson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio, grownup_books

This is an inspiring and gut-wrenching story well told (and well read). Though parts of it were not easy to listen to and it won't be for everyone (lots of torture happening at the hands of the Japanese guards of the POW camps and, even harder for me, the psychological trauma the POWs went through after the war), I liked it quite a bit. Narrator Edward Hermann will always be Rory Gilmore's grandpa to me, but he's a great choice for this story. His dignified reading was evocative of the 1940s era ...more

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Sep 22, 2014 Jessica rated it really liked it

Shelves: book-club, nonfiction, kindle, biography

Last month was a rough month for me and I was not looking forward to reading WWII nonfiction for my book club, but I was running out of time and so after a couple of days of glaring resentfully at my Kindle I started to read Unbroken.

Mercifully, the book starts well before the war with the childhood adventures of Louis Zamperini as he grows from rough-and-tumble neighborhood menace to dedicated track star. At the age of 19, he goes to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and competes in the 5,000 meter r Last month was a rough month for me and I was not looking forward to reading WWII nonfiction for my book club, but I was running out of time and so after a couple of days of glaring resentfully at my Kindle I started to read Unbroken.

Mercifully, the book starts well before the war with the childhood adventures of Louis Zamperini as he grows from rough-and-tumble neighborhood menace to dedicated track star. At the age of 19, he goes to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and competes in the 5,000 meter race, and although he doesn't come close to winning he knows he has a good shot at the gold in four years. His training finds him closing in on what was then seen as an impossible feat, the four-minute mile, and Olympic gold is looking ever more likely. But then the 1940 Olympics are canceled, and Pearl Harbor is bombed, and instead of setting a world record for speed, Louis joins the Air Force.

Even at this point in the book, things aren't too dark. Louis is in training, making friends, learning a new skill as bombardier in a flight crew. He sees how often equipment failures and other acts of chance injure or kill people even outside of battle, but Louis's crew is skilled and their plane is sturdy and fate seems to be on their side for quite some time.

Everything changes when Louis and a few members of his crew are sent on a rescue mission in a dilapidated plane that suffers a mechanical failure over the Pacific. The crash kills all but three crew members; Louie and his friend Phil and a third man, Mac, lash together two life rafts and spend the next 47 days adrift on the Pacific with no food or water - they catch birds, fish, and rainwater when they can, and waste away to almost nothing. Mac passes away, and Louis and Phil are near death themselves when they finally land on an island shore - whereupon they are immediately captured by the Japanese. And this is the point where the book starts getting really hard to read.

Louis is transferred from one POW camp to the next, frequently abused even above and beyond the horrors his fellow POWs seem to be subjected to. It seems that Louis's Olympic fame is both the thing that saves his life - the Japanese feel it might be useful to have a famous American available to them and want to keep him around - and also the thing that causes some prison guards and officials to seek him out with particular malice.

This part of the book is difficult to read on a number of levels. The abuses in the POW camps are appalling, and spending so much time reading page after page of all the ways humans can be cruel to other humans is challenging. However, at this point in the book Hillenbrand is also weaving in tales about so many guards and POWs that it can be hard to keep people straight, which is a different kind of exhausting for the reader. Also, the whole book is by necessity based on people's recollections of a time more than half a century ago than most of them have probably worked hard to forget about, so there are times when the book feels a little less "nonfiction" and a little more authorial speculation about what people would have been thinking and feeling in the camps.

Overall I'm glad I read Unbroken, though I wish my reading hadn't coincided with a dark time in my own life. I'm glad to have learned about Louis Zamperini's life, and I think on the whole Hillenbrand did an excellent job telling the story. ...more

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May 02, 2011 Alvin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, read-while-at-stuart, read-in-2011

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 29, 2012 Rae rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bio-memoir, 2012

An absorbing and very thorough biography of Louis Zamperini (a 1936 Olympic track star), who survived a horrific bomber crash into the Pacific during World War II. After drifting for 2,000 miles, he and his buddy were captured by the Japanese and sent to a POW camp. They were tortured day after day until finally being liberated after Tokyo was occupied. Hillenbrand has captured the essence of one of the greatest generation's finest!

This book is so detailed in its descriptions that at times it is ...more

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Jan 31, 2011 gwen g rated it it was amazing

Perfect airplane reading. I loved Seabiscuit a lot, but I think I loved Unbroken even more.

The story of Louis Zamparini -- an American Air Corps bombardier whose plane went down over the Pacific, stranding him on a raft for over a month and eventually making him a prisoner of war -- is amazingly compelling on its own, and Hillenbrand's writing is clear but evocative and just gets out of the way of the un-put-down-able story. It was a really wonderful way to carve out a small window from one pers ...more

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Feb 18, 2011 Kaitlin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, must-read, historical, favorites, wwii, adventure

This book was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Spellbinding, descriptive, enthralling. It's tough not to sound trite when telling you how much I loved this book. I loved Seabiscuit, so I was excited to read Unbroken. Little did I know this would be the best book I've read in awhile. The gripping story is too good to be non-fiction, told in an accessible way by Hillenbrand, I found myself gazing at the cover in my bag as I worked, just waiting for the subway ride home. It's an absolutely inspirational story. ...more

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Apr 03, 2011 Sarah rated it really liked it

Shelves: recommended-books, nonfiction, audiobook

I learned a tremendous amount from this book, particularly about the WWII Pacific Theater and war-time Japan. I was actually surprised at how little I knew about both, and this book left me eager for more. Hillenbrand weaves this comes material around the compelling and unbelievable story of Louis Zamperini, and (with the exception of a brief period describing his post-war life) she maintains tremendous momentum throughout the story. We were rapt with attention throughout the audiobook -- defini ...more

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Apr 24, 2011 Risa rated it it was amazing

An outstanding story. Well told.

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Aug 16, 2011 Ally rated it really liked it

Shelves: truth-stranger-than-fiction, kindle

They say that the truth is stranger than fiction, and boy - no author could come up with this real-life story. At times horrifying, uplifting and unbelievable (and sometimes all three!), Unbroken is captures the atrocities of the "other" WWII (the Pacific theater), a side I was rather ignorant about. A great book that never became preachy or boring but very simply the incredible story of an ordinary guy. ...more

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